Rains in Leyte defy ABS-CBN, make fun of NDRRMC

Just as rains often start with a few drops, let me begin light with a few personal notes: I married my wife Arlene straight out of college and promptly took her home to Cebu from her native Leyte. In the early years, we would never fail to drop in on Cleo, one of her closest friends from college in Tacloban, whenever we visit Leyte.

It was during one of those visits that I happened to leaf through a book written by Cleo's father, Gregorio Luangco, then a professor at the Divine Word University, sister school to Cebu's University of San Carlos. I can no longer recall the book's title but a bit of info I got from it has stuck with me all these years: It rains on an average of 22 days a month in Leyte.

I have now been in Carigara, Leyte, for four straight years since I retired, helping the wife care for her soonto-be-95 (puhon puhon) wheelchair-bound mother. And if there is one thing I can say about those four years with regard to the subject of this column, it is that yes it rains almost daily here despite what Ariel Rojas may have said on TV the night before.

Rojas is the resident meteorologist of ABS-CBN. And because I do the errands and hate rains, I have to watch his nightly forecasts, especially the rainfall segment. I want to know ahead if the wet market tomorrow will be wetter and I have to count my inflation-rapped pesos in the rain. Whether or not I get a good night's sleep totally depends on Ariel.

But lately I have been losing sleep because the weather no longer seems to agree with him. Even when he does not mention Leyte among the provinces where rains are to be expected, it still rains in the province. Even days that start out very sunny with blue cloudless skies somehow always have rains manage to sneak in at any time.

It does not help either that the NDRRMC sends out text messages of orange or red rainfall warnings that come many hours late, long after the rains have come. NDRRMC warnings that come after the fact are worse than PAGASA weather forecasts that range from sunny to rainy and everything in between, with none accurate but the water from heaven.

What sins we have committed, God is back with a vengeance. Upon our heads God heaped rains that pay Ariel Rojas no mind, insult the NDRRMC no end, and force PAGASA to cook up what can only be the "utan bisaya" or "kalandrakas" of weather forecasting. The weather is askew and life is topsy-turvy and wet. Climate change, kuno, with nobody listening.

Carigara pedicab drivers used to amaze me. They once braved the rains unprotected but have now grown too old to battle the elements, driving with one hand, an umbrella on the other. They take me to duel with prices so high they are a joke. Everyone's favorite meme, the onion, is now more expensive than pork it is so funny my gums dried from laughing.

And the prices of fish in Carigara, already the highest in the universe on any given day, soar to even higher heavens in bad weather. Thank God the mayor gives away canes to senior citizens, steadying them in case prices make them faint and wobbly. It is said into life some rain must fall. Oh yeah?! Come to Leyte. It rains 22 days a month and never mind Ariel.